


The Repositioned Bro Priority Syndrome

by AndreaLyn



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-16
Updated: 2011-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:06:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barney's been doing a study and now that he's invented RBPS, he doesn't want to acknowledge that it <i>exists</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Repositioned Bro Priority Syndrome

When Barney invented the ‘Repositioned Bro Priority Syndrome’ (or RBPS as it went on his blog), he didn’t tell Ted about it or Marshall and he didn’t crow about it when he amassed four awesome trial-cases that turned out to support his theory. No, when Barney Stinson discovered that RBPS was both real and it was a terrible, horrible, _endlessly_ debilitating disease, he went to MacLaren’s and bought himself the world’s strongest scotch ( _so_ strong, in fact, that it kicked a couple of lagers asses on its way to Barney’s stomach).

Robin found him when she came by to order a drink before heading home for the night and he couldn’t even look her in the eye.

“Did laser tag get banned?” she asked sympathetically, resting her hand on his shoulder.

Once, Barney had catalogued every little aspect of Lily and Robin that existed and made little asterisks beside the ones that made them different from all the women Barney took home to his place. “No,” he scowled.

“You’re sulking.”

“Please,” Barney scoffed. “Ted sulks. Marshall sulks. I express my discontent in ways that are entirely too awesome to be described as ‘sulking’.” Robin had really nice nails, but she always kept them too short. Not like ‘wow, didja skip dinner because you were full after biting those suckers?’ short, but too short to leave marks. Barney liked women who had nails on them; at least, enough to leave an impression. _Yeah,_ he did. It was just one of the many ways that she and Lily were different from the various array of women that Barney had conquered.

The problem was this -- and he had charts and everything to prove it, he just didn’t feel like dragging them out now that he felt so Ted-like in his utter castration of awesome. All his work, all his devotion, and he’d just proved that all bros had to eventually fall prey to a fatal disease.

It was the Repositioned Bro Priority Syndrome and there was no known cure.

See, guys didn’t just stop being bros. No, they were bros for life. The standby fist-bumps, the high fives, the general air of awesome, those were still there. Once you had been trained in the Way of the Bro, it was a part of you forever. You still acknowledged the sanctity of a high five and laser tag would never stop being awesome. Except…oh god, and Barney felt dirty even _thinking_ about it. Except your priorities just got repositioned.

He had his case studies, of course. James, for one.

Come on, like _antiquing_ was all that awesome? And yet, every time he talked about it, Barney could swear that you just had to substitute ‘double armoire’ for ‘double D’s’ and the lascivious joy and glee would fit right in. And it didn’t stop there! Oh God, no, maybe it would have been salvageable if it had, but it just continued on and on like a terrible, horrible disease.

The very worst part?

 _They didn’t even notice it was happening_.

Robin was looking at him expectantly and Barney realized he probably had to tell her something. So he had two options. Option one! Man up and tell her the absolutely humiliating truth of what he had just discovered and the even worse part, the one he really didn’t want to acknowledge – it might be happening to him _too_. Or option two, lie his attractive and perfectly sculpted ass off to her and not look back.

“It’s just…” he started, shaking his head hopelessly as he looked at her with those boob-shaped boobs all perky and her eyes all blue and stupid because he probably could drown in them and oh _god_ , he was becoming Ted. “It’s that cheerleader with the rack in the corner,” he continued with the same put-upon tone that he had before. “She’s from _Jersey_.”

Robin’s hand lifted off him at that and she gave him that wrinkled and disgusted look that usually meant ‘mission successful, she’s not going to look at you again for oh, at least three hours’ and muttered something under her breath as she left him.

So he’d lied, so what. He did it all the time to the point where he could probably write it on his resume as a professional hobby (some people had their crochet and knitting, but Barney was a genuine prodigy at lying. True story. He gave seminars to the new hires during orientation).

He wasn’t ready to admit that he was slowly becoming one of RBPS’ sad victims. Where he would think about women and _commitment_ and wine tasting and dinner parties the same way as he used to think of scoring and being awesome. He was a bro. He was Barney Stinson. He was _legendary_.

And he had just invented the very way to describe him during his downfall because he’d gone and fallen for Robin Scherbatsky.

“Another drink, Wendy,” Barney demanded, faltering more than slightly. “And keep ‘em coming.”

This, he reflected miserably, was so going in his blog.

THE END


End file.
